Is Technology Destroying Human Social Life?

Yesterday I was talking on the phone with a friend, and I said to him, ” Can we just text, I don’t feel like talking on the phone.”

After saying this, I realized how rude it was, but more importantly I realized how damaging it was to the friendship as a whole.

There is no possible way that we can truly learn about each other if we are not communicating in real life.

I believe that the option to text someone has become the number one source of communication because we get to edit and retouch what we say. With the advancements of social networking, we can edit and retouch WHO WE ARE. Think about it.

We are not learning anything about each other anymore.

A magnificent aspect of being a human is that we can all show emotion through our voices, gestures and language. If we are not hearing each other speak, or seeing each other in person, we are not truly understanding one another. The time people are together in person, they spend it staring at their phones anyway. They do not want to be interrupted, and real conversation is cut down to one word answers.

All of these social devices that seem to do so much for a person are actually not doing much at all. People are becoming more lazy, they are relying strictly on their phone, and, most importantly, they are forgetting how to communicate in real-time.

A great thinker, Sherry Turkle, describes this as being “alone together” or “Connected, but alone.”

In a very deep speech she made during a TED meeting, she explained that people are hiding from each other while constantly connected to each other (Through texting, social networking etc.)

She makes a great point when she says,

“Technology appeals to us most when we are most vulnerable. When we are lonely and afraid of